Shots fired when San Marcos man attempts to reclaim stolen bicycle

A San Marcos man attempting to recover a stolen BMX bike narrowly avoided being wounded by gunshots late in the evening on Monday, February 18.

Shortly after 10 p.m., an unnamed couple discovered that a bicycle had been stolen from the front area of their residence. Scouring the neighborhood on foot, the husband saw two suspects, described only as “Hispanic males in their late teens to early twenties,” riding bicycles, one of them the bike stolen from his home.

Returning home, the theft victim and his wife got into their car and again went out in pursuit of the thieves, whom they located near the intersection of 1st Street and Via Juanita.

The victims called out to the suspects, who were still in possession of the stolen bicycle. The suspect in possession of the bike threw it into the roadway and produced a semiautomatic handgun, firing several rounds toward the victims. One round struck the victims’ car door, another hit a parked vehicle on the street and punctured the gas tank, but the theft victims were uninjured.

The San Marcos Fire Department responded to the scene, cleaning up the gasoline spilled. As of this writing the San Diego Sheriff’s Department has not identified either of the suspects in the shooting.